Jim Gore

25 December 20XX

Convenience Store

DIRTY BLONDE

I showed up late to work today.

Everybody keeps a secret. If you get involved, you’ll eventually get to knowing so much that it’s dangerous to talk about it. So I don’t. Not to my parents. Not to my friends. Not to Duane. Not to Miranda. I don’t say anything.

“What’s his actual name?” I asked her. I sounded pissed off; probably too pissed off; seeing red.

She said it. Everything was a haze. “Jacob…”

It’s become a whole fucking thing. Nobody has the right, but they’ll speak on it anyways. What the hell do they know? And that reminds me of my old cynicism. That reminds me of its presence in my head, that it never really died. Traces, just traces. But who can I blame?

Look me in the eyes and tell me I’d actually take responsibility. Go back a couple weeks, take my weak words, and make me eat them. How little shit could I give.

It won’t matter in six months, right, or a year? It won’t hurt me. It doesn’t hurt me.

“Hi! Are you a rewards member?” It’s my voice, my words, and beyond the murder in the back of my eyes… nothing’s changing. Nothing is happening, and I’m waiting for it, like an animal about to be killed for food. There’s no simpler way to put it, Lisa Sieradski. Jobs like workers, masters like slaves, customers like prostitutes. And how coherent is any of this, anyways?

But fuck you.

You coulda gotten anything, from smokes, to liquor, to football cards, fuckin’ condoms, fuckin’ anything, take your pick. Take it and just walk right out, what do I care?

‘Cause tonight, the thoughts are too heavy to give a shit who anyone is. I stop dead in place and just wince, and focus on what I shouldn’t be.